Sunday, February 11, 2018

Virginia pioneers DECEASED make their triumphant return to Portland to deliver the wrath of true horror metal! Led by exuberant heavy metal historian King Fowley, DECEASED was the first band to sign to Relapse Records in 1990, and they have continuously raised the banner of underground death metal as bullshit musical trends have come and gone! Since forming in 1984, the band has only appeared in Portland once (in 2010), and due to van trouble, local headbangers suffered a disappointingly abbreviated set. This time, I'm flying 'em out for a special one-night-only Northwest performance...to set the record straight!!!! UP THE TOMBSTONES!

Seattle/Bellingham deathbangers SLUTVOMIT have been called many things by many people, especially reactionary regional journalists who do not check their facts. Their name has certainly not done them any favors in this regard. What the press has routinely failed to acknowledge is that this blackened horde is one of the heaviest and most promising bands on the West Coast. Fortunately, the rest of the world already figured it out. Experience the swarming darkness that is SLUTVOMIT for yourself and turn the cross towards hell!!!!

Formed in 2012, WITCH VOMIT released Portland's best death metal album of 2016 with their debut full-length A Scream From the Tomb Below. This young power trio delivers gore strewn riffs, pounding old school rhythms and throat eviscerating vocals from beyond the grave in the macabre old school tradition. WITCH VOMIT wields the blade and leaves behind incriminating forensic evidence that the underground is alive and very undead!

DJ Dennis Dread: Intrepid war chief will perilously suspend himself behind turntables stage left and spill whiskey all over his vinyl so YOU don't have to suffer through bullshit music in between bands.

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Happy Birthday to Sir Andrew Belling, creator of the star-dusted soundtrack to Ralph Bakshi's animated masterpiece Wizards (1977), and one the kindest and gentlest men on the planet. Born in Willesden, London TODAY on January 17, 1945. I hope you are having the best day, Andy! You sure deserve it!

Saturday, January 06, 2018

Wyrd War has reignited Sister Irene O'Connor's mystical hymns of devotion and delivered them from the outposts of obscurity to be enjoyed once again on vinyl in 2018!

Recorded by nuns Sister O’Connor and Sister Marimil Lobregat on electric organ, piano, guitar and heavy doses of reverb in 1973 at the Catholic Radio and Television Centre in Sydney, Australia, Fire of God’s Love is a haunting musical communion teetering somewhere between Hildegard von Bingen and The Space Lady...on the hills of Meggido! Fans of our previous releases Music From Enchanted Forest and Wizards soundtrack will delight in these twelve sparse and perplexing songs of beatific whimsy and apocalyptic esoterica. Out of print since the 1976 repress, this extremely limited edition lovingly replicates the original 1973 layout design, and has been masterfully restored by Timothy Stollenwerk.

Proceeds from this release will benefit Friends of the Columbia Gorge, the only Oregon non-profit entirely devoted to the preservation of one of the Pacific Northwest's most cherished wilderness areas, to support the reforestation and continued protection of Eagle Creek in the aftermath of the September 2, 2017 fire that burned for three months before it was declared extinguished.
Official release date is February 14, 2018 but we are offering it for pre-sale NOW and will ship as soon as we have them in hand. Trust me. You need this record in your life.

Thursday, January 04, 2018

Thank you to everyone who came out to our one-night-only screening of The Mafu Cage at Laurelhurst Theater! It was a special night, and a great way to put 2017 behind us. Hope you kept your therapist on speed dial. Thanks also to the Willamette Week for taking the time to get to know us. This article sums it up rather well.

Sunday, November 26, 2017

December is my ol' lady's birthday month, and we're celebrating this badass broad with a one-night-only screening of our favorite "psychological thriller" about hysterical women…who kill!!!!

The Mafu Cage (1978) is one of the most beautiful, perplexing and genuinely disturbing films of a truly perplexing decade of bold independent cinema. Maverick director Karen Arthur weaves “a terrifying love story” of two sisters entwined in an increasingly depraved relationship within the crumbling isolation of their deceased anthropologist father’s mansion. Ellen, a successful astronomer with aspirations beyond her family’s own dark constellation, played by Academy Award winner Lee Grant (Shampoo, The Swarm, In The Heat of the Night), struggles to shield her beloved sister Cissy, a damaged introvert with extreme daddy issues, played to the bloodcurdling hilt by the inimitable Carol Kane (Dog Day Afternoon, When a Stanger Calls, Scrooged), from the infringing outside world as they descend inexorably into a black hole of madness, mayhem and murder.
Brilliantly filmed by acclaimed cinematographer John Bailey (Cat People, The Big Chill, Groundhog Day), and boasting dazzling set and costume design, The Mafu Cage is a perilous delight for the senses that simply must be experienced on the big screen to be believed.

Advance tickets on sale now at the Laurelhurst Theater box office. Come get crazy with us. And by "crazy" we really do mean deeply disturbed and very uncomfortable. There will be cake.

Friday, November 10, 2017

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Happy Halloween, boils and ghouls! Your costume looks horrific, so I have a real nasty GROSS ANATOMY treat for you today! The timing for this one couldn't be better since Decibel Magazine just included Chris Reifert of Autopsy in their Top 10 Drummer Vocalist list published yesterday. I don't need a magazine to tell me things I've known for a few decades myself, but it sure is cool to see an underground hero like Reifert formally recognized in this way. Congrats, Chris! When Autopsy recently asked me to do the cover for their 2017 EP Puncturing the Grotesque, they had some truly sickening ideas for illustrating the lyrical themes of their latest nightmare vision of mankind's descent into total self-loathing depravity and brutality. Here's how it went...

I started with pencil and worked at it until a loose narrative scene took shape on the illustration board. The guys wanted a blood orgy featuring post-apocalyptic mutant corpses at war. Not quite traditional zombies, not quite human cannibals. Something other. Once I had a fittingly ghastly composition worked out I jumped in with my trusty ballpoint pens!

Early on while we were discussing ideas and song titles, I envisioned nauseating primary colors even before I had a firm grasp on what the imagery would eventually become. That's rather unusual for me, because I generally prefer the rich grey tones that I've established some infamy for over the years in my staunch refusal to "progress" toward color. But this one definitely called for color. And color is what I gave it...

Come on in, the water's great! Most of what you see here is watercolor and ballpoint pen, but the skull in the background is color pencil with a splattering of watercolor spewed all over it for sloppy good measure. In hindsight, this is my chromatic vomit-soaked FUCK YOU to modern "death metal" bands that use moody chiaroscuro filtered images of trees on their albums. That sorta junk is usually code for boring riffs. This is DEATH METAL, not a fuckin' car commercial!!!!!

Once the drawing/painting was done, I wasted no time handing this beast off to my partner in design crime A.K. Wilson who adjusted the colors ever so slightly for print perfection, and dropped the classic Autopsy logo up top and Chris Reifert's unmistakable handwritten album title along the bottom. If you think this drawing is a crude distasteful caveman cartoon now, you should've seen what it looked like before Wilson had her way with it! Hahaha. Puncturing the Grotesque is due out on December 15th from the always reliable Peaceville Records. You know what to do. Now get out there and carve a pumpkin (or whatever you can get your hands on) and eat some candy (or whatever you can get your mouth on)! Happy Halloween. Until next time...

Sunday, October 29, 2017

Cinema club Ghana style with Day of the Dead. Long live George A. Romero!

Photo by Rosie Struve.

Photo by Rosie Struve.

Photo by Rosie Struve.

Ensorcelling the Minotaur.

Cinema club Ghana style with The Exterminator on the day death triumphed over Martin "Slayed Necro" Ain. An irreplaceable and invaluable voice of the underground has fallen silent. R.I.P.

20 year old Henry Loux provided our most precious show review!

Cinema club Ghana style with Mausoleum.

United Forces!

For those about to rot...we salute you! The gates have now closed and the fierce ghost has slithered back into the ether. THANK YOU to everyone who came out and supported this beautiful exhibition. It has been a whirlwind week and, to be perfectly honest, we were overwhelmed by the love Portland showed us for this one. Very special thanks to Brian and Heidi Chankin of Deadly Prey Gallery (Chicago) for sharing their amazing collection, Ami and Sandee Lawless of Burning Spirits Yoga (Portland) for inviting us into their Cobra Lounge, and the extended Wyrd War family for standing by my side until the very end. If you missed it, you done fucked up because most of the paintings sold and are now scattered into private homes and collections, never to be seen again. You can read a 90% accurate review by the Willamette Week here. We already have plans for a 2018 exhibit featuring all new material, and I promise it will remain on display for more than one week next time. Happy Halloween!